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Membership Fee: £600 for the full year, or the equivalent in your local currency

Your Dream Author membership fee will be taken in two instalments of £300 (or the equivalent in your local currency), so enrol now, pay your first instalment and we’ll sign you up! The second half of your membership fee will be charged to your card six months after you join.

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Dream Author Terms and Conditions

1) You agree to pay the full membership fee in two instalments.

2) You understand that the programme fee is per person, for your sole use, and that all Dream Author content is copyrighted. You agree not to share these materials with any other person, or otherwise redistribute them, without written permission to do so from a representative of Dream AuthorCoaching Ltd.

3) You understand that the Dream Author website might periodically be limited, modified or suspended, and that no financial compensation will be payable to you should this happen.

4) You understand that the downloading and use of Dream Author materials and content is undertaken at your own discretion and risk, and that Dream Author Coaching Ltd is not responsible for any results or for any claims including, without limitation, any damages to your computer system that results from downloading content from the Dream Author website.

5) You understand that the Dream Author membership community is a social network in which personal information may be exchanged between participants. You are entirely responsible for deciding how much of your personal information you wish to share in the community. Dream Author Coaching Ltd will not share, sell, or rent the personal information of its members to third-party businesses, however, we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any of the information you choose to share in the community. By taking part in this Community, you agree to keep members’ information confidential.

6) Children are not eligible to use our services unsupervised and we ask that children (under the age of 18) do not submit any personal information to us. If you are a minor, you can use this service only in conjunction with permission and guidance from your parents or guardians.

Frequently Asked Questions?

What is the key benefit of this programme to a writer?

By the end of the programme, you will know exactly how to manage your thought habits, emotions and behaviour in order to make you massively more likely to achieve your writing goals and feel great on the way to doing so. And if it takes a long time to reach those goals, you will learn how to feel not merely okay about that but positively great. Most writers, however successful, never learn this skill — and so, if they suddenly experience a setback (let’s say their books stop selling and their publisher dumps them) they feel rejected and paralysed and don’t know what to do next. They imagine that the answer to the question ‘Help! What do I do now?’ might be something like ‘Find a new publisher who does want me.’ Temporarily, that might work and make them feel better — but then what happens when the next setback strikes? Do you try again to find new people to make you feel better?

That isn’t the answer. The true, permanent and always-effective solution is to learn how to manage what goes on inside your own brain, because that’s what creates your reality and enhances your results. Once you become your own best ally and advocate, you’ll be able to decide what to do about any problem — writer’s block, lack of time, overwhelm — and you’ll know that you have a rock-solid and always-wise advisor who will never let you down: you. That best ally and mentor to yourself is who Dream Author will teach you to be.

Will all the interactions be online? Will there be a forum that we would need to be part of? Is the coaching online/ Skype, and is it targeted for individuals or does it address key topics in a more general way for the participants?

The weekly webinars will be online, on the Dream Author website, and you’ll access most of the material (monthly workbook, webinar, podcasts, Monday Missions, extras) online. There will also be an online members’ discussion forum so that you can meet and chat to other Dream Authors if you want to. There will be no obligation for you to do so, of course. Some people won’t want to interact at all in the discussion group, and some will be there all the time! Either way is fine.

The programme can be divided into learning and coaching. The Monday Missions, the monthly workbook, the podcast…these all fall into the learning category. Some will be exercises that you’re invited to do (with no pressure at all — just as and when it suits you), and some will be things that you can read or listen to, and mull over, that invite no further action from you apart from thinking about what you’ve heard/read.

The other part of the programme will be the coaching, and there will be two components to this: the weekly webinar (video) and the Ask Sophie page (exchange of emails). If you want individual, targeted coaching on your particular issue, you’ll be able to get it in either or both of these two ways. And you will also be able to benefit from the group coaching aspect of the programme as follows: let’s say you ask for coaching on a specific question via the webinar. You then join the next webinar and I address your individual issue, and so you get the help you wanted with that. Then, if you stay in the webinar for the full hour (or watch the video of it later — all webinars will be posted on the website so that people can watch as and when it suits them) you will hear me coaching on perhaps five or six other people’s issues and that will be immensely useful to you as well, because you will for sure hear something that helps you in the discussions you hear me having with other writers.

The Ask Sophie coaching will work in a similar way. You can enter your question into the box provided and I will answer and coach you on your issue there, and you will also be able to look at the many and varied issues other writers have raised (with all identifying details removed, of course), and my answers to those, and benefit from everything you learn there too. I’ve designed the Dream Author programme so that all participants can get the full value of both individual and group coaching at the same time.

What sort of ‘work’ would I be doing as part of this programme?

The work (which you would do whenever was convenient for you) would be: doing the exercises from the Monday Missions and the monthly workbooks; listening to the podcast episodes; attending/watching the webinars. You will be doing the work for you, to suit your life and learning pattern, not to fit in with any deadline of my making. The only deadlines I’m going to create are for myself, to provide the content on time!

Some people who have enrolled so far are doing the Monday Mission exercises weekly and sending me their answers. Some haven’t done any yet and are waiting to do them when it suits their schedule. Others might never do the exercises — they’re still benefitting and learning from reading what the exercises involve, and then listening to the podcast in which I talk about the results/answers. There is no right way to approach the material, though when you join, I will offer you some guidance about some different possible approaches you might take. From my point of view, I make the resources available and you can do everything as and when it arrives, or stretch it out so that it lasts you three years! Both routes can be equally beneficial — it all depends on what suits you. The crucial thing you need to know is: everything I create and make available will remain available to you forever, so there will never be any time pressure.

What sort of time commitment should I factor in, to benefit from the programme?

Whatever would work best for you, as discussed above. When you enrol, I will send you an official welcome message, and this will contain some suggestions/direction with regard to how best to approach the Dream Author content depending on the time you have available.

You can find a fuller answer to this question in the How to Make Dream Author Work for You section towards the bottom of this page.

What are the key areas/ topics covered?

In the Dream Author programme, you will learn everything you need to know about the relationship between what happens with your writing (books, agents, contracts, sales, reviews) in the outside world, and how you think and feel about those things. Once you learn to manage your own brain and create the reality you want to live in, you will then be able to ensure that you’re not believing thoughts that are false, limiting and disempowering. This work will massively increase your chances of success and long-lasting happiness in relation to your writing.

The monthly workbook titles/subjects are listed below, and you can join the programme at any time throughout the year. Once you join, you will be able to dive in and get started immediately! So, for example, if you join on 16 November, I will suggest that you spend the rest of November doing some of the early Monday Missions (8 April to 26 August) and listening to the podcast episodes that are already available, and then start the December workbook at the beginning of the month along with everyone else. You could then do the September, October and November workbooks at the end rather than at the beginning of the programme and your Dream Author year would run from 16 November 2019 to 30 November 2020.

Monthly Workbook Titles:

September: Defining the DreamOctober: Resolutions and ResponsibilityNovember: Emotions and EvolvingDecember: Authority and AlignmentJanuary: Money and Mind-ManagementFebruary: Ambitions and AssuranceMarch: Unblocking and the UnknownApril: Thinking and Time-ManagementMay: Hopes and HabitsJune: Obstacles and OpportunitiesJuly: Refining and RevisingAugust: Successes and Stepping-Stones

Will you edit my book if I join 'Dream Author'?

Dream Author is not an editorial service. I won’t be able to read manuscripts and edit them. I will, however, be able to resond to editorial-related queries such as ‘I’ve written a romance novel in which a woman falls in love with a handsome osteopath, and now my editor is insisting I turn it into a western in which a new sheriff comes to town and shoots all the baddies. Should I do this, or is he being silly?’ Here are some examples of the sort of book-specific advice I can and will offer via Ask Sophie and the weekly webinar:

Q: I’m working on an idea for my fifth novel, and the story seems to want me to use two points of view: one in first person, and one in third. I’ve done this before, with my third book, which hasn’t been picked up yet by a publisher, so I’m not confident that it’s a good idea – and I can’t immediately think of another author who, or a novel which does this. What do you think?

A: Well, I personally think that sounds like a great way to narrate a novel! I’m biased because it’s how the majority of my contemporary crime novels are structured: odd-numbered chapters from victim-of-crime’s point of view, in first person present tense, and then even-numbered chapters from police point of view in third person past tense. Also, Clare Mackintosh’s ‘I Let You Go’ is narrated in this exact same way and it was a massive bestseller. So, I think it’s a brilliant approach and often works really well. When I sent out my first novel to agents/editors, some of them said they didn’t like the mix of narrative perspectives, but they were the wrong people for my book. The right agent and editor for my book were the ones who shared my belief that that narrative approach worked.

If it feels right and best for the story to be told in that way, then you should listen to your instincts.

Q: I am writing a novel about siblings and have 5 voices narrating their version of the story in diary style entries. Some speak for half a page, some for longer. Are 5 too many? I keep thinking that one voice would perhaps be more engaging for the reader, continuity-wise. I am half way in so it would probably not be too much fun to re-write and the idea was to present different perspectives. Having said that, I would rather people read it than be ‘true’ to the original idea. Please let me know what you think.

A: First of all, there is no reason at all why you shouldn’t have five different voices. Many excellent novels do have multiple narrators. The best example I can think of offhand is Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman – an absolutely stunning novel that has seven narrators. The key thing is whether the novel is in its ideal form, with the story being told in the ideal way. For some books that will mean multiple narrators, and for others it will mean only one. I can think of novels that have too many narrators for their stories and would have been much better with just one. In one case (the worst offender I can think of!) the many different narrators seemed only to add confusion and dilute the focus. Some were main characters while others were minor characters, yet all were given exactly equal narration rights, which made the book feel disjointed, and meant that no proper narrative momentum could build.

If your novel contains five siblings, all of whom have perhaps experienced the same childhood but experienced it differently, then to divide the book into five and give them each a section, or sections, to narrate sounds as if it might work well. With structural issues like this, the most important thing is that it should be clear and simple for the reader. So: five protagonists, five narrative voices – that’s clear and simple. I would strongly recommend having eg ‘ANDREA’ (or whatever the first narrator’s name is) at the very beginning of the first section, which will immediately say to readers ‘Andrea will not be the only narrator’. In my next book, the whole story is narrated by Beth, so I don’t have ‘BETH’ at the top of chapter 1 because it’s fine if the reader assumes Beth will be our only narrator – because she will! So if you put ANDREA right up front, you’re clearly signalling to your reader that other narrators will follow.

Some excellent reasons for having multiple narrators are:

a) the same events are told from 5 different points of view, and with each new narrator’s version a new layer is added to the story

b) it’s a very linear narrative, moving from A to B to C to D to E, and the narration takes the form of a sort of story-telling relay race, with each narrator taking over for a different part of the story so that the narrative doesn’t feel too one-dimensional/claustrophobic and so that we get to know the characters better as the story unfolds.

Both of these approaches can be very satisfying. Another thing I’d recommend for a story with multiple narrators is making sure the links between their narrations are strong. So, let’s say the first narrator is Andrea and the second is Bob. If, at the beginning of Bob’s narration (with a big ‘BOB’ at the top, of course!), he refers immediately to some of the characters or incidents that we’ve already met in Andrea’s narration, we will feel reassured and think, ‘Okay, this is fine: a different narrator but definitely the same world/story.’ Stories almost always benefit from strong continuity and a sense of forward narrative momentum, but with variation within that. So five different characters taking the same story strongly forward can work brilliantly!!

Will I get a qualification at the end of the programme?

No. And you’ll fully understand why you don’t need one. Instead of a piece of paper, you will have all the mental and emotional skills you need to ensure that you can fully enjoy the rest of your writing life and maximise your chances of success.

What happens after I've been in the programme for a year?

In the eleventh month of your year in Dream Author, I will contact you to offer you the chance to enrol in the Dream Author Advanced programme for the following year. There might be other tempting options on offer too. Wait and see!

Will dream Dream Author teach me how to improve my writing?

Yes, it certainly will…but not in the way that a traditional writing course would. Dream Author will transform the way you think and feel about your writing, and that will change your writing more than you can imagine

Your Biggest Challenge

“Lots of agents — even brilliant, lovely ones — will say ‘X doesn’t work’, just because X hasn’t worked yet. This doesn’t mean they’re not a great agent! All it means is that they’re thinking in the way most people think, and using the past as a basis for imagining the future. It means that you can be the one who thinks from the future, and all its possibilities. You get to be the person who says, ‘Actually, the world does want exciting, new things, even if it’s scared of them at first, and it only takes one success of type X to make everyone want X.’ That’s the truth, and it’s also an argument based on hope, and growth rather than fear and stagnation. When you say it with confidence, and really mean it because you know it to be true, people will listen. Deep down, no one really wants to believe their own fear-thoughts.”